Mark managed to stumble exactly in front of the man. His arms went out and one hand caught the little man’s leg. The little man fell squarely on top of him, assisted by a slight push from Penelope.

Mark groaned heart-breakingly. In a moment there was a crowd. The little man was getting up, bewildered, and automatically trying to dust off his type K suit. Mark lay half on the curb, half off, squirming like a broken-back snake. “My back,” he moaned piteously. “Oh, my back.”

The little man seemed paralyzed at the enormity of the thing he had done. He stared at Mark and Mark squirmed harder and moaned louder. Then Penelope hobbled up and pulled Mark’s shirttail out of his trousers. The iodine spot on his back looked yellow and purple, and there were gasps from the crowd.

“He did it!” Mark said, glaring accusingly at the little man. “He tripped me. He tripped me and broke my back!”

Penelope was putting on a good act too, crying and wringing her hands and moaning. “My poor boy!” she said, over and over. A woman in the crowd came up and made a very expressive raspberry in the little man’s face. The little man was not only bewildered; he was frightened. Mark adjudged the time had come.

“Points for my broken back!” he cried. Penelope held out a slip to the little man. He signed it dazedly, then he slipped out of the crowd, while three men picked up Mark and laid him tenderly in Penelope’s reclining wheelchair.

Mark could hardly contain himself. As soon as they were safely out of sight he said excitedly, “Let me see the slip.”

Penelope looked around. She kept pushing him but she handed over the slip.